Non-Fiction based novel
Read it
I picked up this book thinking it was about actual mountains and the people who lived in them. I guess it's obvious I didn't read the blurb or even the front cover of the book well enough. Oh well. It was worthwhile anyhow.
There is much said about waste and disposal in India. With a population of around 1,403,643,260 (https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/india-population/), obviously there is much to say. With many very rich people and an ever skyrocketing middle income segment of society, trash is on many minds.
This novel is based on a community that developed in response to a trash dump that developed and grew to epic proportions on the outskirts of Mumbai. India has a fantastic way of creating economies and opportunities wherever it can, and trash is no exception. They may not be a well off population, but there are people who make their living picking through trash for saleable, recyclable, or tradable items. The novel follows a few families who do this. As the story is woven, you start seeing the issues that arrise for populations that live on the edges of society in less than ideal physical and economic situations. Health problems, theft, gangs, and little hope for bigger things all plague the families in the story.
As I've mentioned before, there are a few societal ills that India suffers from that are near impossible to eradicate. Poverty is one such of these ills. There are never enough NGO's, societal support, money, or opportunities to even think about touching poverty. As such, we end up with marginal communities like the ones in this novel. When we throw caste concerns in amongst this it becomes more gloomy.
I'll be honest, it wasn't an easy book to read. It's damn depressing to consider that people live this way and most likely, nothing will be done to help them. I think it's good for people to know this exists. It's definitely not something that comes to light regularly, even with the common discussion of waste.
Read it.
~Becky~
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